The Last Song of Orpheus

3

These things that I have just said I learned gradually, over the years; for even though my spirit moves freely through all of time and space, and almost in the manner of a god I can see both forward and backward through all that has occurred and all that is yet to come, even so I am capable of learning things; indeed, my whole life has been a process of learning that which must be learned. If you see any paradox in that, so be it: what is a paradox to the mind of men is the root of eternal truth to the gods.

I was a master of music from the moment Apollo placed that lyre in my hands. But I was young yet, and not given to reflection even upon my own mastery, so it was necessary for Apollo to come to me in a dream and teach me the higher mysteries of my art.

He took me up in his chariot high above the sky, where in that great lofty-vaulted darkness I could see the planets in their courses and hear the cosmic music that they made as they traveled on their unalterable routes. “Listen,” he commanded me. “Hear them sing!”

My mind was opened and all the universe came rushing in. And the sound that it made was the most glorious music I had ever heard. It was a thousand thousand lyres resounding at once, and the voice of ten thousand thousand throats in the purest harmony.

And indeed I understood that the curving paths of the moving worlds were like the strings of a gigantic lyre. More than that: strict harmonic laws governed the sounds that came from them. From Earth to the Moon there was an interval of a tone; from the Moon to Mercury, a semi-tone, and another semi-tone from Mercury to Venus. From Venus to the Sun, a minor third; from the Sun to Mars, a tone; from Mars to Jupiter, a semi-tone; from Jupiter to Saturn, a semi-tone; and from Saturn out to the sphere of the stars, a minor third, everything blending together in a perfect harmony. All this, under Apollo’s guidance, I heard with my own ears. The music was true and real. And everything was in perfect order: the cosmic harmony governed all, and kept the cosmos from falling into mere chaos. Music is a beautiful concord beween different sounds, and the universe is a harmonious mathematical structure that the far-seeing gods designed according to the same perfect unbending rules, the right relationship of one thing to another, all things bound up in one harmony.

“Now, Orpheus,” said Apollo, when I had caught my breath and begun to encompass within my mind the new things that were pouring into it, “see, if you will, how the laws of music are the same as the laws that rule the cosmos.”

He asked me what governed the sounds that the strings of my lyre made, and after a long moment’s thought I replied that the tuning was controlled not by the thickness of the cords or by the materials from which they were fashioned nor the tension with which they are strung, but by a set of proportions reflecting the length of the strings. Strings under the same tension, I said, are stopped differently to sound different notes, according to the ratios 2:1 for the octave, 3:2 for the fifth, and 4:3 for the third, and so forth. “Yes,” Apollo said. “This is true. And the tuning of the worlds? Is that not the same? Listen to their music, Orpheus! Listen to it! The heavens themselves follow the laws of number that your lyre obeys!”

And so they did. I felt a kind of ecstasy spread through me as I seized upon the understanding that music was not just a series of pleasant sounds, but the epitome in sound of the balance and order of the universe. That music and that order are the work of the One God whom men know by many names, by which everything is connected to everything, issuing forth the endless continuous song that is the harmony of the cosmos.

My dream went on and on. Apollo showed me much else, things that I may not share with you in any detail, for they border on the Great Mysteries that only an initiate in the highest order may know. I will tell you that he revealed to me planets not yet known to the wisest sages of Hellas, ice-shrouded worlds that lie far out beyond Saturn, but are subject to the same laws that govern those we know. He took me up into the domain of the blazing stars and taught me things about them that would astonish you, if I dared reveal them here. I heard their song also. The star-song would make you weep if you could hear it, so beautiful is it, so noble. He took me down then into the realm of the infinitely small, where the same musical laws prevail that dictate the motions of the planets and the stars. By the time he was done with me I was numb with joy, and my head swam with wonder at the grandeur of the great creator-god whom we have called by so many names.

Then I awakened and looked about me, gasping in amazement at the memory of all that I had seen. My head was full of swirls of blazing light—the myriad colors of the fiery stars, the radiance of the planets—but above all it swam with the blessed music of the spheres, a music that would stay with me always.

From that moment on the doorway to true knowledge lay open to me. I knew the nature of the divine framework that our world and all the other worlds are strung upon, and realized that it was my task to bring the heavenly harmonies down to our world through my playing and my singing, to maintain the reason and beauty and wholeness that are Apollo through the art of music, and thus to sustain my portion of the great harmonic structure. And it became clear to me that in the proper performance of my task I must travel widely, and suffer greatly, and strive unendingly, and give my life again and again, for the sake of helping to uphold the miraculous structure that the gods have built.